But the professor does not seem offended.  He seems, indeed, so entirely unimpressed by Hardinge’s last remark, that it may reasonably be supposed he hasn’t heard a word of it.

“And she?” says he.  “Perpetua.  Does she——­” He hesitates, as if finding it impossible to go on.

“Oh!  I don’t know,” says the younger man, with a rather rueful smile.  “Sometimes I think she doesn’t care for me more than she does for the veriest stranger amongst her acquaintances, and sometimes——­” expressive pause.

“Yes?  Sometimes?”

“She has seemed kind.”

“Kind?  How kind?”

“Well—­friendly.  More friendly than she is to others.  Last night she let me sit out three waltzes with her, and she only sat out one with your brother.”

“Is it?” asks the professor, in a dull, monotonous sort of way.  “Is it—­I am not much in your or her world, you know—­is it a very marked thing for a girl to sit out three waltzes with one man?”

“Oh, no.  Nothing very special.  I have known girls do it often, but she is not like other girls, is she?”

The professor waves this question aside.

“Keep to the point,” says he.

“Well, she is the point, isn’t she?  And look here, Curzon, why aren’t you of our world?  It is your own fault surely; when one sees your sister, your brother, and—­and this," with a slight glance round the dull little apartment, “one cannot help wondering why you——­”

“Let that go by,” says the professor.  “I have explained it before.  I deliberately chose my own way in life, and I want nothing more than I have.  You think, then, that last night Miss Wynter gave you—­encouragement?”

“Oh! hardly that.  And yet—­she certainly seemed to like—­that is not to dislike my being with her; and once—­well,”—­confusedly—­“that was nothing.”

“It must have been something.”

“No, really; and I shouldn’t have mentioned it either—­not for a moment.”

The professor’s face changes.  The apathy that has lain upon it for the past five minutes now gives way to a touch of fierce despair.  He turns aside, as if to hide the tell-tale features, and going to the window, gazes sightlessly on the hot, sunny street below.

What was it—­what? Shall he never have the courage to find out?  And is this to be the end of it all?  In a flash the coming of the girl is present before him, and now, here is her going.  Had he—­had she—­what was it he meant?  No wonder if her girlish fancy had fixed itself on this tall, handsome, young man, with his kindly, merry ways and honest meaning.  Ah! that was what she meant perhaps when last night she had told him “she would not be a worry to him long!" Yes, she had meant that; that she was going to marry Hardinge!

But to know what Hardinge means!  A torturing vision of a little lovely figure, gowned all in white—­of a little lovely face uplifted—­of another face down bent!  No! a thousand times, no!  Hardinge would not speak of that—­it would be too sacred; and yet this awful doubt——­